"Some of these essays are powerful and poetic. Some seem to reflect a stunned condition on the part of the contributor. But all of them share a newborn or reawakened feeling about the country we live in -- an underlying concern for it, whether that concern is rooted in anger and fear, or in a sensed and urgent need for action, or internal correction,... more...

''When you are a great grandfather you will experience something so much more powerful and meaningful than being a father or a grandfather, that you will look at the march of generations with new eyes.'' When his great-grandson Alexander was born in 2002, Hugh Downs suddenly gained a rare perspective on the world -- he had seen the evolution of American... more...

Hugh Downs, legendary broadcaster at 20/20 and The Tonight Show, describes how an endlessly creative childhood lead to his career as a radioman and broadcaster. Topics examined include: his father?s wayward attempt to automate their entire family home (down to the plumbing), a boyhood attempt to manufacture alcohol (until his Grandmother wrecked... more...

Exuberantly written, highly informative, Jensen's Stories That Changed America examines the work of twenty-one investigative writers, and how their efforts forever changed our country. Here are the pioneering muckrakers, like Upton Sinclair, author of the fact-based novel The Jungle, that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to sign the Pure Food and Drug Act... more...

When Hugh Acheson (now a James Beard Award winner as a chef and author) moved from Ottowa to Georgia, who knew that he would woo his adopted home state and they would embrace him as one of their own? In 2000, following French culinary training on both coasts, Hugh opened Five and Ten in Athens, a college town known for R.E.M., and the restaurant... more...